Paparazzi Snapshot! Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

Strangely addictive....

In this world of Brangelina and the third (or is it fourth) comeback of Britney Spears there has been an increased focus on getting pics of celebs at their worst. Images of Sarah Harding's regular drunken nights out put her lowest out of all five imho. Yet we never really stop to think about who's getting the pictures apart from a few choice mockumentaries following the supposed lowest of the low, the Paparazzi.

I-play have decided to turn this career on it's head and have made a casual game out of it. We're always quite fond of I-play games and this one is no exception. While it could be improved in some places, it's great fun to play and certainly gets the old brain cells working.

In a nutshell, you play the part of an aspiring photographer who gets a series of bigger assignments to snap evidence of stars and their stories. Essentially there are three mini games to play, but they all tie together on each level. The first one involves using your camera to find specific objects on the screen. These are dotted about all over the place and the number of objects combined with the background will usually make them fairly hard to spot. There were certainly a few times when I let out an audible "aha!!" after finally spotting the object I was looking for. Quite what the other tube passengers thought of me is anyone's guess.

The next mini game is a spot the difference game, you have two versions of the same picture and you have to use your pointer to identify the difference. The more you get right consecutively the more money you earn. The differences could be on either picture so you have to approach them with Sherlock Holmesque scrutiny.

Finally the last mini game is snapping the subject of your investigation in action. The camera will autofocus on the area they are going to appear and once they pop their heads out you have to move the viewfinder quickly and snap a pic.

Now by themselves these mini games are probably not all that appealing, or to be more precise, innovative, but together they have a strangely addictive quality. The more I played the better I got at finding the hidden objects and spotting the numerous differences. Whereas on the first few levels I couldn't believe there were 21 differences between each picture, on the latter levels I almost found all of them. The levels also increase in difficulty so you certainly feel a greater sense of achievement when playing them.

Notice I haven't mentioned the last mini game yet? Well this was a bit hit and miss for me. I am having quite a few problems with my K800i, especially the joystick due to overuse (no sexual connotations required please) so I ended up using the pad. With this last game, unless you know where the snappee (you're the snapper remember) is going to appear, it can be very very hard to move your viewfinder that quickly. Sure, they pop their head up once or twice but other times they bounce across the screen in a strange fashion and you may miss one or two shots out of six.

Why does this make a difference, you ask? Well, I'll tell you why. It's because I-Play are very clever and have introduced awards based on how well you do in the game. You can get awards for speed, difference spotting, level completion etc etc. So getting less than 6 shots out of 6 means you may miss out on getting an award. And you know I'm a perfectionist so in this game I'm a sucker for repeat playing. This certainly adds to the value of the game, but could definitely have been handled better. There's no option to continue on specific levels where you didn't get 100% so you basically have to play through the full game again. And that means it will be tough to remember where things are the first time around, let alone the second time once you've played the game through.

Still, this is a slick game and although the three mini games sound fairly standard, I-Play has made it quite addictive. The snazzy graphics and sounds and vibration certainly help too. Worth a look, but the repeat value could have been a little longer. I finished it twice to try and get all the awards, and only got a few extra the second time around. Without a free play mode, I'm not sure how much I'll keep playing the game.